Published in News

Wi-Fi bug in Linux

by on16 April 2007

Image

Control without wires


A bug in a key Linux Wi-Fi driver means a hacker can take control of a laptop even when it is not on a Wi-Fi network. The bug affects the widely used MadWi-Fi Linux kernel device driver for Atheros-based Wi-Fi chipsets.

According to Laurent Butti, a researcher from France Telecom Orange, who found the flaw, said it was vital to manually patch your MadWi-Fi driver. The flaw was shared with the MadWi-Fi development team, who have released a patch. New Linux distributions have not yet built the patch into their code, warned Butti.

According to PC World, the bug creates a kernel stack-overflow bug that lets an attacker run malicious code. It is possible to carry out even if the machine is not actively on a Wi-Fi network.

More here http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130717-pg,1/article.html

Last modified on 16 April 2007
Rate this item
(0 votes)